Nathaniel Philbrick ponders the lasting lessons of Moby Dick:
In every age, there will be a threat to the principle of "divine equality," and his name is Ahab. In Melville’s view, it doesn’t take much to become a demagogue as long as you learn a few simple tricks. Dictators such as Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Qaddafi are not geniuses; they are paranoid despots and expert manipulators of men. If you want to understand how these and other megalomaniacs pull it off, read the last third of Moby-Dick and watch as Ahab tightens his stranglehold on the Pequod's crew in his increasingly horrifying quest for the White Whale.
But Melville also provides a description of the ideal leader.
In the midst of a disorienting crisis, what is needed more than anything else, he suggests, is a calm, steadying dose of clarity, the kind of omniscient, all-seeing perspective symbolized by an eagle on the wing: "And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces." This is the anti-Ahab, who instead of anger and pain relies on equanimity and judgment, who does his best to remain above the fray and who even in the darkest of possible moments resists the "woe that is madness."
The Dish 